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Broomfield's Corgenix receives $2.9M grant to develop Ebola test

By Alicia Wallace, Camera Business Writer

Posted:
06/26/2014 07:13:59 AM MDT

Updated:
06/26/2014 05:11:31 PM MDT

The National Institutes of Health awarded a $2.9 million grant to Corgenix Medical Corp. for the Broomfield-based diagnostic products maker to advance its rapid test for the Ebola virus, officials for Corgenix announced Thursday.

The awarding of the 3-year grant comes on the heels of proclamations that the Ebola epidemic in Africa is the deadliest outbreak in history.

International organizations have reported 599 cases and 338 fatalities in dozens of different sites across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, not only in remote areas, but near major cities.

Earlier this year, Corgenix shipped out hundreds of its prototype Ebola rapid tests as part of a "first line of defense" attempt to detect the virus in a matter of minutes.

Corgenix, founded in 1990, develops a variety of diagnostic products that range from tests to determine aspirin's effectiveness in individual humans to assays that can rapidly detect viral hemorrhagic fever such as Lassa.

The Ebola test resulted from a 2010 to 2012 research program conducted in partnership with the Viral Hemorrhagic Fever Consortium and funded with nearly $600,000 from the NIH.

Corgenix officials have said the Ebola assay identified potential indications of the deadly virus in 15 minutes after an initial screening and confirmed the diagnosis in a little more than an hour. Other testing methods can take a few hours.

The test has not been cleared or approved for diagnostic use by any worldwide agency.

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Corgenix needed additional funding to conduct field tests, but the follow-up proposals were denied, something Douglass Simpson, president and chief executive officer of Corgenix, attributed to limitations in research funding and — because Ebola was then dormant — a need to address more immediate diseases and viruses.

Corgenix's last request, made last year, was not initially approved; however, once the situation grew dire in West Africa, Simpson got a call notifying him that the funding came through.

"It's a good project — 3-year project, $1 million a year — to build on what we did in years 1 and 2 for another 3 years to get it up to the point where it could then go to official clinical trials and commercialization," Simpson said. "It's important."

As part of the latest NIH grant, Corgenix will work with the Viral Hemorrhagic Fever Consortium, which is led by Tulane University.

Corgenix, which has 50 people at its Broomfield offices, has immediate plans to hire two more employees to work on the Ebola project, he said.

"What we really hope is at the end of this 3-year period, we won't be scrambling to send stuff out of our coolers here, we'll have a finished product on-site," he said. "And that when the next epidemic erupts, we'll be in a much better position."

The data from the prototype tests being uses at Corgenix's lab in Sierra Leone will play a critical role in the 3-year program and advancement of the tests, he said.

"We're off to a good start," he said. "We know the materials we developed four years ago work. Now we have to really advance it into what will be the final testing products that will be used in this setting."

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